Rajesh Khanna’s alleged girlfriend Anita Advani once recalled being deeply impressed by him and eventually developing strong feelings for him. She was just 13 when she met the 30-year-old actor, and she was in complete awe.
In a 2013 interview with Rediff, Anita revealed that she met Khanna during a trip to Mumbai. He asked for her phone number and suggested they keep in touch. A few days later, he invited her to visit him on set, where he was filming a song with Mumtaz. Anita waited in his make-up room, feeling young and unsure about why she had been asked to wait there. Khanna spent considerable time with her in the make-up room, marking the beginning of their interactions. At the time, Anita was too young to fully understand the nature of their meetings.
“When I went on the sets, he was shooting a song with Mumtaz. It was a rain song. I was asked to wait in his make-up room. I had come for a few minutes to see the shoot, but mostly I was waiting in his make-up room. I was too young and didn’t understand why he asked me to wait there. He came to the make-up room and stayed with me for quite some time. That’s how we started meeting. He wasn’t married then,” she shared.
Anita said that she took a year off from school and spent six months in Mumbai, where she fell in love with Rajesh Khanna. He gave her a lot of attention, and she was deeply impressed by him. However, when she returned to Jaipur, they parted ways without any major conflict. Anita remained upset but didn’t contact him again, and Khanna also didn’t stay in touch.
“I fell in love with him. He gave me so much attention. The way he spoke to me, I was totally blown away,” she added.
The actress said that she went through depression but was too young to understand that it was depression. She became very quiet and aloof. She never got married. She was in love with him, but she never wrote letters to him or called him.
Anita said that it was around 2000 that she started visiting him regularly and apparently moved in with him in 2006. Rajesh Khanna passed away in 2012.
